


Jeeves and the Strong Drink

by mistrali



Category: Jeeves - P.G. Wodehouse, Jeeves and Wooster
Genre: Crush, Drinking, Implied Romance, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-28
Updated: 2019-06-28
Packaged: 2020-05-28 10:27:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19392223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistrali/pseuds/mistrali
Summary: Bertie and Jeeves have a bit too much alcohol one night.





	Jeeves and the Strong Drink

You might say Bertram isn’t given to observational whatsits. But living with a cove for five years makes one sensitive to changes in his dial. Especially when said c.d. involve the young master’s choice of apparel.

Today the stuffed frog had slipped just a little. There was a quirk about the mouth that meant Jeeves, in his own Jeevesian way, was distinctly ruffled. He didn’t even comment on my rather fruity purple cummerbund and green paisley waistcoat. Well, you understand, I exulted in secret. I thought Bertram had finally gotten one over on that marvellous piscine-fuelled grey matter of his. And besides, it was his day off today. Perhaps he was thinking about reading Spinoza, or inventing portable telephones, or whatever it is that chappies like Jeeves do in their spare time.

When I ankled back in after a late supper, however, he was nowhere to be found. This was strange. Jeeves was like the proverbial watch you could set the time by.

Well, I mean to say, I couldn’t hang around there forever, so I fumbled to my wardrobe and sort of floundered my way out of my coat. 

I was trying to work out where to hang the blasted thing when I heard footsteps. Nearly made me jump out of my skin, I don’t mind telling you.

”Jeeves?” I bleated, a little disconcerted. I mean, it isn’t every day that one’s manservant biffs off to uncharted waters and leaves one marooned in a sea of trousers and belts.

He must have heard me, because he came straight to my room and turned on the lights, which had rather slipped my mind after one b&s too many. 

“Sir, if I may,” he said, and had it out of my hands, folded and hung up before you could say Jack Robinson. 

I frowned. He looked dashed pale and there was a bit of redness about his eyes. If I hadn’t known him, and it hadn’t been for his behaviour that morning, I might’ve said he’d overdone it on the grog as well.

“I say, Jeeves,” I said, alarmed, “are you alright? Only, you seem rather out of sorts today.” 

“Sir?” He looked up and sort of gathered himself. “I apologise for being late, sir - I did not mean to alarm you. I lost track of the time.”

“Quite all right, Jeeves,” I said. “I just meant that... well, you’re looking a bit white round the lips. Any chance of some more brandy, Jeeves?” I asked, and trailed out to the sitting room after him. I was already yawning but strangely reluctant to go to bed, It didn’t help that my Aunt A. was coming to visit tomorrow. I suppose that was why I wanted to get so bally sloshed in the first place. My Aunt Agatha, as my readers will already know, would drive St Peter to the bottle.

“I assure you, sir, I will be perfectly fine.” 

I was doubtful, but I supposed Jeeves would know and I didn’t want to press the fellow, not being his physician. 

“Ah, that’s the ticket,” I said, while he got a glass out of the cupboard. “Oh, go on, have some, Jeeves. I insist. I’ve already kept you up past your — well, your bedtime, I suppose,” I finished sheepishly (if that’s the word I want). It was bally odd to think of Jeeves doing something as ordinary as needing to close his lids. I’d always had some vague notion that he sat up nights reading Aristotle and Hegel and all those philosopher birds, and then rose with the lark on the wing, as fresh as a daisy.

“It is no matter, sir,” he said, but he poured himself a half-measure as well, handed me mine and sat down opposite me at the table. Then he sort of stared vacantly at my left shoulder. Even I could see that something was on his mind.

“Did you enjoy your day off, Jeeves?” I asked, to distract him from whatever it was that was making his eyes so blank.

“I spent my day with a dear friend of mine who is in love, sir. I have been advising him on the best court of action to woo his young m- maiden, sir.” I thought I could detect a bit of glumness in his dial. Most extraordinary. Perhaps it was the drink, or perhaps it was the peculiar mood manifesting itself.

“Oh, I say,” I exclaimed (fairly chirped it, in fact), “this is another one of your matchmaking schemes. Well, that’s marvellous! Love is a song, what, Jeeves? One should let one’s heart sing, and all that.” 

The stuffed frog mask was back again. “Indeed, sir. I am afraid it was to no avail, however. The... ah, young lady did not return my friend’s affections. It seems her relatives did not consider the match suitable.”

“Ah, well, hard luck, eh?” I could sympathise, having landed myself in the soup more times than I could count. Although this chap sounded more along the lines of my pal Bingo, who used to be forever tumbling headlong into romantic entanglements with the fairer sex. If I had a bob for the times I’ve gone to some beastly club or other hoping to catch a glimpse of whatever beazel he’s got riding on his arm that day... Of course, after that he met Mrs Little, alias Rosie M. Banks, and is happily hitched.

“Hard luck, indeed, sir.” Jeeves smiled at me - a mere softening of the eyes, a small twitch of the mouth, but it was a smile.

“You know, Jeeves,” I said at length, buoyed by another glass of the needful, “Have you, er... that is...”

I hesitated. It isn’t preux to ask one’s valet whether he’s got into any scrapes of the matrimonial sort, or, for that matter, whether he’s been struck by Cupid’s arrow. (You will be thinking, dear reader, that quaffing brandy with one’s valet is hardly the done thing either, and I can only justify my appalling violation of manners by saying that it was entirely responsible for several delightful things that followed, and that Jeeves forgave me very graciously indeed.)

“Do you mean to ask, sir, whether I have ever been in love?” he said quietly. There was something in his eyes that made goosebumps rise on my arms.

I closed my eyes. It sounded bally awful when put like that. I hadn’t been trying to pry, I’d only wanted to know what sort of dashed prodigy would want to ring the wedding bells with my paragon of a valet. I’ve met Drones (old Oofy Prosser, for example) who you couldn’t tell a secret to without it getting halfway round London before the day was out.

“I’m sorry, Jeeves,” I rushed to say. “That was... that was an entirely personal question. I just... I suppose someone as clever as you wouldn’t get into scrapes like the rest — well, like yours truly. You’d just... you’d sort of float into...”

I shook my head and shut up. The brandy was floating to my head and making me as daffy as Madeline Bassett.

“Sir —” he said, and then stopped, with the most desperate look I’d ever seen him wear. “I have never had the opportunity - that is, found anyone suitable,” he said, in a strangled sort of voice. “I have been in service since I was nineteen.”

“Oh, Jeeves,” I said muzzily, another long silence and quite a lot of brandy later. “Oh, but Jeeves... if you get mar-married, then you‘ll have to leave me.” I was aware of his nearness. His eyes were so... so.... and his lips...

I made an abortive movement towards him; something was telling me even then that if he discovered what I was - an invert - he might make my life perfectly miserable. He might even report me.

He seemed to come to his senses, then. His lovely brows rose and he got to his feet. “I think, sir,” he said gently, only a trifle unsteady, “that it is time you went to bed. I did not realise the brandy would affect you so. You have a long day tomorrow. Here, sir, take my arm.”

“Y’s,” I said, leaning into him and staggering to my room - at least, I hoped it was my room. The state I was in, he could’ve taken me to China without my being any the wiser. Then I collapsed onto what I thought was my bed.

“You’re a marv’l, Jeeves,” I said, as he was turning to leave.

I thought I heard a soft, amused voice say, “Goodnight, sir.”

**Author's Note:**

> Concrit always welcome. This is my first long J&W fic, so my characterisation might be way off.


End file.
